Breaking-np of the Ice in Spring, 9 



with stones pushed up by stranded icebergs. It is not 

 the detached blocks that do the harm so much as large 

 fields of ice; these come along at the rate of about three 

 miles and a half an hour, with an enormous momentum — 

 so much so, that in one instance a wooden house, built 

 on a jetty on the bank, had its upper story completely 

 carried away by the advancing icebergs, which absolutely 

 cut the building in two just as the inmates were making 

 their escape. The ice, covered with stones, logs, and rubbish, 

 crushing and seething in huge hummocks, forms a perfect 

 picture of chaos. I have thought in the pell-mell arrangement 

 that there is some similitude between the river then and the 

 rugged surface of a lava field broken up and fissured.* 



The inhabitants on the banks of the St. John look forward 

 to this breaking up with interest, less now, however, since 

 the railway has made them independent of water carriage ; 

 still, at all times, it effectually dispelled the dull monotony of 

 the long winter. At length the cry that the river is going 

 sends the anxious to gaze on the remarkable scene. " It has 

 started!" exclaims one, and just as the already shattered 

 mass has commenced to move, there is a jam somewhere, 

 above or below, that causes the shore ice to rise up, and 

 hummock after hummock standing on edge, scores and rubs 

 the banks ; now ploughing up the soil, then impinging so 

 heavily on the solid pier made of huge pine trunks, that it 

 absolutely knocks a hole through them as one would push 

 his finger through pie-crust. 



The damming back caused by the floes riding over and 

 submerging each other, often becomes a serious matter with 

 the inhabitants located in the intervales or river valley along 

 its banks, thus causing the water to rise and flood the surface 

 to a dangerous extent, as I will show in the sequel in the case 

 of the capital, when the banking back raised the waters so 

 high that the town was inundated. 



* See page 277. 



